Buying a Macbook Pro and need help

I am a PC user who is switching over to Apple for the first time as my HP laptop died about a month ago. I would like to purchase a macbook pro and have been reading appleinsider/macrumors for some time now. I can?t seem to keep my head straight as to what is going on ? is the new macbook pro going to have a new chipset from Nvidia, will it be Montevina or some novel design? Is it coming out in September with a new case? Finally, is there usually this much speculation for each new macbook pro release? Cheers.

No one knows anything for sure what the update is going to be. All anyone has is rumors, some pictures of an aliminium case that are assumed to be genuine and some more rumors. your guess is as good as anyone elses. No one even knows for sure that there actually is a MacBook Pro update coming, allthough the warning Apple gave retailers about possible stock shortages makes it a fairly sure thing.

And yeah, things can get a bit hectic before any Apple event. It's part of the charm of being a Mac user, frankly.

So is Montevina more than likely not going to appear in the next macbook pro -- best guess?

I would guess at least a 50/50 chance that it will be based on a Montevina chipset. If it isn't then the likely reason is Apple has some better idea cooked up. Of course it could still be based on Santa Rosa if some better idea is coming along but isn't ready yet.

It's funny because I never knew that apple was so secretive about their product launch dates. I was hoping that all apple had acquired/developed a newer chip set that eliminated the front side bus -- I know Naehalem is coming but with all of this talk from apple about a new product that will boost their market share and the Nvida threads.... well I just thought that perhaps it would come this time around.

soo..i'm in the same boat, about to switch from a pc to a mac and really need the latop sooner rather than later. with the upcoming refresh do you think it's going to be worth the wait or should I just got bet the pro now. btw im looking at the 17" model

I cant tell you how much I have been going over this in my head. I am switching to a Mac because I love UNIX, and I'm fed up with Windows. The problem is that I was hoping to be ready with it before school start, Sept 2. Is there any chance that we will know what is coming out so that I can buy the new mbp, if there is one, before then?

I cant tell you how much I have been going over this in my head. I am switching to a Mac because I love UNIX, and I'm fed up with Windows. The problem is that I was hoping to be ready with it before school start, Sept 2. Is there any chance that we will know what is coming out so that I can buy the new mbp, if there is one, before then?

This is EXACTLY my problem... school starts September 2nd, but I'm in the same position over MacBook... let's hope it comes out soon

As someone else in another thread said, if you know what your must-have date is, just wait until a few business days before then to order it (or pick it up locally). Resist any urge to buy until you have to. At that point you'll either get the new lappy or not. It sucks not knowing when, but it's the only thing we can really do.

lol yea that is what I am trying to do, but I want it sooooo bad. I have an Lenovo x60 Tablet now, but I just can't stand Vista being so inferior to any UNIX like OS, I don't even care about the table functionality now. I just want a stable and polished OS like OS X with great hardware, the macbook. This is killing me!

I cant tell you how much I have been going over this in my head. I am switching to a Mac because I love UNIX, and I'm fed up with Windows. The problem is that I was hoping to be ready with it before school start, Sept 2. Is there any chance that we will know what is coming out so that I can buy the new mbp, if there is one, before then?

One important thing to keep in mind is, based on Apple's warning to their distributors, supply could become short in the last week or so... you might want to keep an eye on supplies of the model you want as the time to buy comes closer. You don't want to get caught in the dry spell should the current models run out before shipping starts on something new. I'd hate for anyone who needs something soon to get caught waiting weeks past their "must have" date for shipments to catch up with orders. It's been known to happen with new product rollouts.

One important thing to keep in mind is, based on Apple's warning to their distributors, supply could become short in the last week or so... you might want to keep an eye on supplies of the model you want as the time to buy comes closer. You don't want to get caught in the dry spell should the current models run out before shipping starts on something new. I'd hate for anyone who needs something soon to get caught waiting weeks past their "must have" date for shipments to catch up with orders. It's been known to happen with new product rollouts.

I never though about it like that. Thanks for the advice, I think I might just buckle down and get it in hopes of returning early if the new one come outs.

Ok, in light of me not being able to pull the trigger, and all this great new news, should I get one or not? Lemme give you my situation. I need a laptop for school. Currently I have a lenovo x60 tablet. I love it so much, for the tablet features, size, battery, and pretty much everything. However, I cannot be productive with vista, but if I get XP then I loose a lot of essential tablet feature, defeating the purpose of the laptop. The other optionis to get linux, but I grab the most popular distro, like ubuntu, and again I loose all of the worthwile features.

Finally, I decided to just get a great machine and a solid os. This lead me to excellent harware, apple, and an awesome os, the UNIX based OS X, which will also allow me to easily virtualize linux, or windows. The only downside is I lose my tablet and have to shell out the money to get the apple. Then I found livescribe. So do you guys, with you inifinite knowldege, think I should get the mbp, or stick with my lenovo?

Ok, in light of me not being able to pull the trigger, and all this great new news, should I get one or not? Lemme give you my situation. I need a laptop for school. Currently I have a lenovo x60 tablet. I love it so much, for the tablet features, size, battery, and pretty much everything. However, I cannot be productive with vista, but if I get XP then I loose a lot of essential tablet feature, defeating the purpose of the laptop. The other optionis to get linux, but I grab the most popular distro, like ubuntu, and again I loose all of the worthwile features.

Finally, I decided to just get a great machine and a solid os. This lead me to excellent harware, apple, and an awesome os, the UNIX based OS X, which will also allow me to easily virtualize linux, or windows. The only downside is I lose my tablet and have to shell out the money to get the apple. Then I found livescribe. So do you guys, with you inifinite knowldege, think I should get the mbp, or stick with my lenovo?

I'm in teh same boat as you. I'm going to wait a couple more days before buying a mbp.. I doubt they'll release an update in sept for the mbp cuz the nehalem chips won't be in production until early 2009

I'm in teh same boat as you. I'm going to wait a couple more days before buying a mbp.. I doubt they'll release an update in sept for the mbp cuz the nehalem chips won't be in production until early 2009

i seriously doubt they are going to wait for nehalem to update.

i think at this point its worth wating if you can survive for awhile because i dont think it will be too long until the new mbp come out. i seriously doubt they will be out any later than september

I'm in a similar situation to the thread starter, I've been holding out until the last minute to get a MacBook pro, and it looks like it will be a few weeks at least until it actually comes out. Luckily for me, the library loans out laptops for 4 hours or 2 days. I'll make due with one of those for classes and use a desktop in my room until I get my MBP